Miller, Skaggs ordered to stand trial in shooting at deputy case

At the conclusion of their preliminary hearing in Mendocino County Superior Court Thursday morning, the two men accused in a high-speed chase and shooting at a deputy's car were bound over for trial on charges of the attempted murder of a peace officer and assault with a firearm, among other charges.

Walter K. Miller allegedly leaned out the passenger window of a 1995 Thunderbird driven by his co-defendant, Christopher Skaggs, and shot at deputy Darren Brewster's pursuing patrol car, hitting the radiator and disabling the car about two miles after turning onto Highway 253 south of Ukiah in the Feb. 25 chase.

The preliminary hearing is the district attorney's chance to show a judge enough evidence to be strongly suspicious that the accused committed the crimes and should be held to answer for them.

Witnesses who took the stand during the first part of the hearing Wednesday testified about the two defendants' statements to law enforcement about the incident, and that of Tracy Cox, Skaggs' girlfriend, who was also in the car with her dog in the back seat during the chase.

Wrapping up his case Thursday morning, prosecutor Matt Hubley of the Mendocino County District Attorney's Office told the court that as Brewster was walking up to the driver's window after stopping the T-bird on South State Street for expired registration tags, Miller told Skaggs to "duck," indicating that he meant to shoot the deputy.

That was according to Skaggs' statement, Hubley told the court, which also included an assertion that Skaggs sped away just as Brewster reached the window to avoid gunfire, and drove "like a bat out of hell."

Hubley argued that because Cox saw the 9 mm submachine pistol Miller had, and because Miller leaned out the window first with the gun's safety on, sat back to remove the safety and leaned out again to shoot, "certainly it was out there that shots were very likely to be fired." Miller also allegedly told his companions, "I'm not going to prison for the rest of my life,'" Hubley said.

Miller claimed during an interview with Mendocino County Sheriff's Office detective Andrew Porter that he wasn't trying to shoot the deputy, but was just trying to scare him away from the chase, according to Porter's Wednesday testimony. Porter said Miller also claimed that he knew Brewster and wouldn't have shot at his car if he knew it was him.

"There was no intent on the part of my client to kill Deputy Brewster," Kubanis said, adding that shooting in the direction of an inhabited vehicle "supports implied malice," but did not show the "express malice" needed to charge his client with attempted murder.

"There's nothing to indicate that my client harbored a specific intent to kill Deputy Brewster," Public Defender Linda Thompson, who represents Skaggs, argued. "He (Miller) certainly was firing from a moving vehicle ... one bullet penetrated the radiator; Miller was trying to get him to back off."

Video taken from Brewster's pursuing patrol car showed the chase reaching 95 miles per hour on South State Street, then slowing after the T-bird turned onto the winding Highway 253. Brewster testified Wednesday that the T-bird slowed and at least twice crossed into the oncoming lane to give the passenger -- Miller -- a better shot at him.

The rounds, at least five of them, were fired in rapid succession while the T-bird was in a straight stretch of the highway and in the opposite lane, Hubley argued.

"For an all-out chase, it was slower," Judge John Behnke said of the leg of the pursuit that took place on Highway 253. With Miller leaning out the passenger window to aim, coming back inside to take the pistol's safety off and leaning out again, "Skaggs would certainly know what was going on at that time, and to put or keep the vehicle in the eastbound lane gives Miller a better shot."

Skaggs will also be held to answer a charge that he recklessly evaded a peace officer. Behnke said the evidence made him "strongly suspect" both men were involved in a burglary from a Potter Valley home reported earlier the night of the chase, during which five guns and other items were reported stolen.

Some of the items were found at the scene where the T-bird was found abandoned in a driveway off of Highway 253; the 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, one of the five guns reported stolen from the Potter Valley home, was found in the Best Western hotel room on Orchard Avenue where Miller was holed up for nearly four hours and threatening suicide before he surrendered to SWAT agents Feb. 27.

Miller was held to answer a burglary charge from a previous incident where he was alleged to have taken a laptop and medicine from an acquaintance's home, and a charge that he threatened a potential witness when he later spoke to the acquaintance after the burglary was reported.

Hubley withdrew a robbery charge where a woman who was checking on her friend's home caught Skaggs rummaging through her friend's dresser and was punched by Skaggs as he left.

"The person from whom the property is taken has to be the owner or have a significant relationship to the owner," Behnke said, explaining the reason for the withdrawal of the charge.

The judge held the men to answer for first-degree burglary from the woman's friend, and Skaggs for battery on the woman who he allegedly punched.

Skaggs and Miller are due back in court for arraignment on the information -- a procedural step in felony cases -- on May 28.

Tiffany Revelle can be reached at udjtr@ukiahdj.com, on Twitter @TiffanyRevelle or at 468-3523.